Memory Card Torture Test

An interesting article posted by BBC News talks about five different memory card formats (CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia) being put through a torture test. "They were dipped into cola, put through a washing machine, dunked in coffee, trampled by a skateboard, run over by a child's toy car and given to a six-year-old boy to destroy. Perhaps surprisingly, all the cards survived these six tests."

Taking it to the next level of shock therapy though, the article says, "Most of them did fail to get through two additional tests - being smashed by a sledgehammer and being nailed to a tree. Even then, data experts Ontrack Data Recovery were able to retrieve photos from the xD and Smartmedia cards."

It's good to know that the storage media we're using in our cameras have been designed to be robust.